I suppose the best place to start is with this past Friday. Our friend Erica thought it would be a good idea to skip dinner at the cafeteria (which didn't look promising) and instead, we organized a BBQ down on the beach. The Strand (where downtown meets the beaches) is equipped with a bunch of free-to-use grills and tables and everything, right next to the beach. We jumped a bus and went grocery shopping, and then took off for a night of amazing food and fun. I bought a steak to make, and it was awesome. We had so much food, and a bunch of people turned up, so it turned out to be really successful. Needless to say, get a bunch of people together on a beach at night, and swimming will definitely happen. A bunch of people (myself included) decided to jump in the ocean for a dip under the stars. It was so warm, and the sky was so clear. It was great. I know it doesn't sound all that amazing, but if you could have been there. It was easily one of the best Friday nights I had. And all our Australian friends were super eager to help us learn the southern hemisphere star map; but they really only knew where the Southern Cross was. Thats okay. Still awesome.
Since we turned in pretty early on Friday, we had no problem getting an early start to our Saturday by heading down to the rope swing at the river. Despite the freshwater crocs and the eels, we still went in the water. Again, it was really warm and jumping off the trees into the water was really great. It turns out that its a really big hot spot for swimming with the college kids here.
I lost of bit of skin on the rope swing, but it still worth it. I can't wait to do it again.But we weren't done there. Feeling inspired, we decided to take on a hike up Castle Hill. And seriously, the term "hill" here is an understatement. It should be called Castle Cliff or something, because hill is not doing this incline justice.
This is a picture of Castle Hill from the bottom. Our goal is that top peak. It was a rough, but totally worth it climb. It was a bit embarrassing whenever we got passed off by better hikers, but we still managed to make it. It was a lot of fun too, and I'd do it again. We picked a good time; the sun was making its descent, and things were cooling off. It was such a great feeling to get the view from the top. 
We were all pretty tired and hungry after the hike, so we decided to eat fresh and get some Subway. Sometimes it's nice to have something American like Subway... but we ended up missing our bus, and we would have had to wait quite some time for the next one. Luckily, two very nice Australia blokes (friends don't worry) drove into town to come get us, and I got to ride in a car for the first time since I've been here. It was actually really cool. They drive on the wrong side here, and the cars are built backwards. After a quick shower, we got ready for a night-in hanging out with a bunch of our friends. I won't go into details, but we had a really great night just hanging out.
Today was a field trip for me; Reef HQ to do some fish species counting. It was pretty cool too, but my exhaustion was setting in. I was happy to get back to campus this afternoon. Now it's time to buckle down and get some work done! It's already the start of the 5th week of classes! I have a lab report due tomorrow, a paper due Friday, and another paper due next week! Time to get cracking!
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